...it doesn't always get better.

[pastwatcher]

Fuck this. Fuck that judge.

The start of the story of Cece McDonald is here, including the judge's awful decisions about which evidence to include in a murder trial. May be triggering. She does have people rallying in support, but they can't change the minds of the people on the case.

I didn't even know you could exclude evidence like the defendant's wounds from the actual prior attack, or the "victim's" history of assault and Nazi tattoo, from a murder trial. Doesn't that make it not a fair trial?

This is why so many people have no reason to trust the "justice system". Someone mentioned the comparison to the Trayvon Martin case, where all the circumstances and evidence are so different. Except, it seems the identities of the people involved are the only variables that matter.

Comments

[pastwatcher]

"I mean to say that the entire fucking system is a tragedy"

Yeah, I agree with that. The system is horribly racist, and pretty bad for queer people; the system focuses on punishment in the first place when there are plenty of opportunities to get people productively engaged in society. And that whole mentality starts in our schools, which could change maybe. But the corruption keeps it going in criminal punishment.

[http://users.livejournal.com/little_e_/]

There are a lot more people making $$$ off of punishment than off of rehabilitation or compassion or even plain ol' justice.

I know I said it already, but dammit, we in the "land of the free" have the world's highest incarceration rate. That just never ceases to astound me. And the numbers are even worse for black folks. They're astronomical.

We live in a police state.

[pastwatcher]

Yeah that's what I meant by "the corruption keeps it going". The $$$. And the disdain for poor people, people who've been in jail, and people without jobs, that prevents a whole lot of economists and policymakers and voters from proposing/making/supporting effective solutions.